Various - Black Acid Remixes

Various - Black Acid Remixes
Bryan Black, of CLR-signed techno duo MOTOR, inaugurated his Black Asteroid moniker back in 2011. The Engine EP suggested that it was an outlet for skeletal drum tracks that retain the mechanised swagger of Black's other project but push it into sparser, more forbidding terrain. Its follow-up, the Black Acid EP, appeared last year on Speedy J's Electric Deluxe, and explored still-darker climes. For the most part, Black's reliance on a stringently minimal framework means that his productions struggle to elevate themselves beyond the functional. That quality, though, makes them ripe for remixing.

Perc's version of "Black Acid" ratchets up the aggression, deploying a crisp percussive palette reminiscent of Wicker & Steel, while a succession of scorched noise-textures are looped over the top. The results are eminently Perc, and hugely satisfying. Alva Noto evokes a more modern kind of industry with his reworking of the same track, crafting steely, abrasive electro out of blasts of digital noise and sterile-sounding percussion. It's an approach similar to the one he used in his recent collaborations with Byetone as Diamond Version, though here, sadly, the aggression sits further from the surface. Elsewhere, returns are scarcer. Berghain stalwart Len Faki turns in a characteristically distilled edit of "Pressure," not exactly elegant in execution but certainly fit for purpose. DJ Emerson and Angel Costa make good use of "Hydrogen'''s gaseous bursts of noise, but the results, pitch-black and droning, don't exactly dazzle.